February 24, 2025
AI and American Dynamism
Last year, I published a report, The Age of Uncertainty, on the challenges in understanding and estimating the job and skill impacts of artificial intelligence. One of the big problems was how quickly expert estimates become outdated, not due to any fault on the part of the experts, but because of how rapidly AI is evolving….
February 21, 2025
Haste Controls Waste! A Theory of Reform
I’m intensely ambivalent about fast-moving events in Washington, DC, where President Trump’s Department of Government Efficiency (DOGE), a joint venture with Elon Musk, is causing consternation. Whether part of a purposeful strategy or not, the administration is “flooding the zone” with activity, producing talk of “constitutional crisis” from critics who deplore loose talk from the…
February 20, 2025
Why Cutting Basic Science Funding May Amount to Economic Unilateral Disarmament
Earlier this month, Eric Berger of Ars Technica reported that the White Houses’ first budget request of Donald Trump’s second term could be a fiscal reckoning for America’s government scientific enterprise. The National Science Foundation, a cornerstone of the country’s research infrastructure with its annual $9 billion purse, might face particularly savage cuts. According to Berger, Intelligence…
February 19, 2025
Regional Transmission Organizations as Market Platforms IV
Networks shape modern life. From roads to the internet to global supply chains, they enable movement, exchange, and value creation. But networks also suffer from congestion, a problem driven by both physical limitations and the difficulty of defining and enforcing property rights. In some networks, pricing mechanisms can help mitigate congestion, but political and regulatory…
February 19, 2025
Trump’s Tariffs Would Prime Prices at the Gas Pump
Donald Trump promised tariffs, and he delivered, imposing by executive fiat tariffs of 25 percent on imports from Canada (10 percent on Canadian energy) and Mexico and 10 percent on imports from China. His justifications are “the major threat of illegal aliens and deadly drugs killing our Citizens, including fentanyl,” and our “major trade deficits with those countries.” According…
February 19, 2025
Will the Department of Justice Break the Internet?
There were many contradictions in antitrust enforcement under Biden. But what if Trump’s administration follows the same path? In a striking irony, the Department of Justice’s (DOJ) antitrust case against Google, which was decided last summer, may reduce competition—both in search and in access to the World Wide Web. The DOJ’s proposed remedies would stifle…
February 19, 2025
Practical Steps Towards Data and Software Resilience
The trade-off between resilience and efficiency in cloud-based data storage models begs consideration. Cloud-based models make an individual’s data available seamlessly, regardless of the device used. Data—and even the software used to process it (such as Microsoft Office 365)—are no longer tied to a specific location. The IT landscape has been revolutionized as almost all…
February 18, 2025
Another Step Forward in NEPA Reform
America’s system of environmental reviews has been choking progress for a half-century. A key culprit: the National Environmental Policy Act, once a seemingly sensible safeguard that has metastasized into a bureaucratic quagmire that can entangle projects for years at great cost. As I write in my 2023 book, The Conservative Futurist: How To Create the Sci-Fi…
February 13, 2025
The Intel Challenge and Trump’s Foolhardy Plans for Semiconductor Tariffs
Intel, the nation’s putative semiconductor “national champion” has fallen on hard times. Having led technologically for some decades, Intel fell behind demands for advanced chips after the iPhone emergence and most recently on the burgeoning demand for chips needed for artificial intelligence training. The Biden administration, and now the incoming Trump administration, seem determined to support and…
February 12, 2025
America Must Lead the AI Revolution—for Ourselves and Our Allies
Vice President JD Vance’s remarks at the AI Action Summit weren’t just another policy speech—they were a declaration of intent. The Trump administration is staking out a coherent vision: AI as a pillar of economic growth, national security, and American technological dominance. This approach recognizes that AI leadership isn’t just about research and development; it’s…